11 Puerto Rico Nationalists Freed

September 11, 1999|By DIRK JOHNSON The New York Times

CHICAGO — After vowing to renounce terrorism, 11 members of a Puerto Rican nationalist group walked out of federal prisons around the nation on Friday, freed under an act of clemency by President Clinton that produced a political controversy.

"I'm elated that I'm free, here with my family," Ricardo Jimenez, one of the released prisoners, said as he left a federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind.

Those released belonged to the Puerto Rican independence organization, FALN, which was responsible for 130 bombings in the late 1970s and early '80s. None of those granted clemency, however, had been convicted of crimes that resulted in death or injuries.

A Puerto Rican nationalist group was staging a celebration and rally Friday night in Chicago, where Mayor Richard Daley and police officials have been highly critical of the president's act of clemency.

"It was wrong then, it's wrong today," Daley said of the crimes committed by the Puerto Rican nationalists. He said Clinton was wrong to grant clemency without consulting local police officials, and he said he would ask the FBI to keep abreast of the two released prisoners who said they planned to live in Chicago.

Others among those released were said to be going to Puerto Rico.

Charges against the FALN members stem from three cases in Illinois and Connecticut in the early '80s. Ten of those released were convicted of seditious conspiracy, weapons charges and other counts after being arrested in a stolen van in Evanston, a Chicago suburb, in 1980. They were charged in connection with the armed robbery of a car rental agency in Evanston and were charged with plotting another armed robbery.

Four others were convicted of seditious conspiracy and other charges in connection to what prosecutors said was a 1983 plot to bomb two military installations in Chicago.

Juan Enrique Segarra Palmer, another of those granted clemency, but eligible for release in five years, was convicted of planning the robbery of a Wells Fargo depot in Hartford, Conn., in 1983, with plans to use the $7.1 million stolen for the militant Puerto Rican group Los Macheteros.

Nine of the 15 FALN members who were offered clemency lived in Chicago when they were arrested. Two refused to renounce terrorism and remain in prison. FALN is an acronym for the Spanish name of the organization Armed Forces National Liberation.

In granting clemency, Clinton said the FALN members, who were serving sentences of up to 90 years, had been given punishments that were disproportionate to their offenses.

Critics of Clinton have accused him of releasing the prisoners to help his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, win support among Puerto Rican voters in New York, where she is considering a bid for the Senate. In the face of criticism from New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who is weighing a bid for the Senate as a Republican, Hillary Clinton called on the president to rescind his clemency offer, a move that infuriated some Hispanic leaders in New York.